


a home dissected

by ephemerides



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, also this is pre-pencil, idk if i even like it???, ray ray is cray cray, this one is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemerides/pseuds/ephemerides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's a coldness that comes with it. Not like an inner coldness, one of the soul, not like how psychiatrists describe feeling hollow. But rather a shivering of the bones, limbs trembling in the hot sun. Was this how having a family felt like? Was this really what Rachel had dreamed of for so long?" - or how Rachel is losing it, like clinically</p>
            </blockquote>





	a home dissected

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! so, i've already posted this on my fanfiction.net account, but i wasn't really happy with it bc i just couldn't get myself to write it out as a multi-chapter fic, so I decided to just post it here as a oneshot instead. It's really not that great, but I hope you enjoy it anyway?? (is that a weird thing to say?)

There's a coldness that comes with it. Not like an inner coldness, one of the soul, not like how psychiatrists describe feeling hollow. But rather a shivering of the bones, limbs trembling in the hot sun.

Was this how having a family felt like? Was this really what Rachel had dreamed of for _so_ long? In the dreams she dared not share with anyone (foolish dreams that, no matter how hard she tried to put a stop to, always managed to slip past her eyelids every night), family felt like coming _home_. Like all her life had been a giant trip (the Dyad, Leekie, the glass walls she'd grown up surrounded by) and finding a family of her own would feel just like coming home, tired but happy, sun-freckled skin on soft, familiar sheets.

This was... _different_ , to say the least.

There was no warmth pooled in the depth of her heart, but rather... a strange coldness.

* * *

 

**F a t h e r.**

The arms of a strange man around her, weighing her down. This man, this _Ethan Duncan_. Was this her father? An old man rambling on and on about the most trivial of things? Was this the brilliant Doctor Duncan? No, it couldn't be.

_This_ couldn't be it.

Not after years of wanting and wishing, not after endless nights spent crying and praying and ' _pleaseplease bring me back my_ parents, _doctor leekie doesn't tuck me in like mummy did and he doesn't read to me like daddy, please_ _i just want them back , i_ _don't want those stupid tapes i want_ _**them**_ '. There had to be more than this. More to family. The images might have slipped away, lazy autumn days spent in the park forgotten in favor of white walls and harsh, fluorescent light, but the feeling had always remained. Fleeting bursts of _'_ _i_ _used to belong_ ' and ' _i_ _was loved_ ' always tormenting her. A little taste of what would never come. Like poisonous little arrows they shot away at her chest, ripping her insides open, veins raw and throbbing. 

And she'd done it. She'd found her family. _A father_. So where was her reward? 

Family meant belonging, and belonging meant being loved, and love was  warmth , hot tingles everywhere. So where had she miscalculated? The equation was fairly simple: _father = family = home =_ _ love _ _= happiness_. This wasn't right.  Yes, she'd always struggled to keep her lines straight and her  loops perfectly neat, and she could never remember which lakes went where or how tall all of the mountains were, but math had never been a problem for her. She'd taken to it quite quickly, the endless rows of numbers soothing her. Math followed an order. Unlike those pesky ' _Creative Essays_ ', there were definite steps you had to take in solving an equation, you couldn't just make up numbers and signs, there was no room for childish additions, no space to ramble. _No mistakes_.

So really, this didn't make sense at all. 

Rachel Duncan _did not_ make mistakes. She could not have wasted years of her life wishing on fables, pixie dust leading her straight down the bloody rabbit hole. Then why was she not happy? Why was she not home?

If _Sarah Manning_ had managed to make a family, a home for herself with her so called sisters, why couldn't she?

* * *

 

**S a r a h**

Sarah Manning is light, she is warmth and sunshine. Her eyes are fireworks, her laugh a booming explosion of sounds all mixed together  ( sorrow and happiness bleeding into cries of anger). 

She spreads her light across the earth, and she is not selfish. She's quite a careless creature, Rachel has noticed, leaving pieces of herself in everyone she meets, in every memory made, every laughter shared  ( the good times she leaves behind with a cocky grin, while the bad ones leave her knuckles scratched raw and her tongue metallic, but still with a grin plastered on cracked lips ) . She may not be the smartest of them all, but she is quick on her feet and her fists are always ready, aching to rip and tear apart flesh from bone. 

She doesn't use pompous words to make herself understood, doesn't care for impressing anyone  ( how ironic, Rachel thinks, seeing how she's the one who always leaves the biggest impression on people). She's lost in the science of it all, but she knows the words _'family'_ and _'protect'_ like the back of her palm, recites them in her sleep like a prayer. 

A walking paradox, Sarah is both the rebellious daughter and the soft-eyed mother. 

But Sarah Manning is fire and electricity, she burns the earth she walks upon like a brilliant sun, turns Rachel's wings into ashes  ( that's what she gets for getting so close to the scorching sun that is Sarah Manning). She loves fiercely and protects her family with sharp fangs and mighty roars. She knows nothing of control, doesn't _care_ for it. The only laws she follows are the ones she makes up for herself. No man can step in her way and come out unscathed. 

The magnitude with which she burns is immeasurable. But if there is one thing that can stop Sarah Manning, if there is any  kryptonite that can stunt even the glorious sun, it's found in soft sandy ringlets and dimpled smiles. It's tiny fingers curled around crayons, scribbling messily on paper, it's squealing and belly laughter, paddling barefoot down hallways and mispronounced words. 

For a tiny girl, _the smallest in her class_ , but wise beyond her seven years of life, even the radiant sun stops in its tracks. 

Sarah Manning is raw and unpredictable, and she has a _home_ ( not a _cage_ , not four glass walls suffocating her like she's an animal at the zoo, an attraction for the ugly men and women dressed in lab coats, armed with sharp needles and frightening words ) . 

Out of all the clones, she hates Sarah Manning the most.

* * *

 

** A  l i s o  n **

Alison Hendrix is like the sea, quiet waves rolling in beautiful spirals, twirling like ballerinas on stages. 

She is a vast expanse of  calmness , she holds those she loves afloat, softly carrying them in her arms. She loops and loops, twirls in an endless dance, carefully practiced moves synching beautifully into each other. 

But Alison Hendrix is a storm, too. 

She crackles and breaks apart, she swallows whole villages in her  wake , she is a sea in a storm and her fury spares no man, and Alison Hendrix has a _home_. 

Rachel is most scared of Alison.

* * *

 

**H e l e n a**

Helena is the air. She's got no direction, and yet she never stops flying.

She tip toes across the highest mountains, dances among the clouds. She is the child of the summer breeze, but she is not afraid to play in the shivering cold. 

But Helena is a hurricane. 

She booms loudly and cracks open cities with her fists. Her anger is deadly, she is frightening and even more unpredictable than her twin sister. Her fingernails are coated with blood and sugar, candy wrappers and sharp knives nestled together in her pockets. Helena is a killer, a monster with pale skin and gold curls. 

But she _loves_. Her rusted little heart beats _fast fast fast_ , and it drives Rachel insane that out of all them Helena loves the fiercest, the fastest.  


(and while Rachel's on the ground clawing her way out of the mud, Helena is up up up in the sky, twirling carelessly in the wind)

And the wind has carried Helena to her _home_.

Rachel refuses to associate herself with Helena.

* * *

 

** C o s  i ** **m a**

Cosima Niehaus is the earth. She's the smartest of them all, and her roots run deep. 

She tethers them, keeps them all from floating away.

(except Helena who listens only to the sunlight through her lashes, and the soft  clouds she lays her head upon)

Her hands dance in a  hypnotising rhythm and her words tumble out in a rapid stream, spilling out in  phrases over phrases, maddening and soothing all at once.  Her eyes are soft but her looks are rough, dark circles borne from late nights hunched over microscopes and lab probes.

She laughs lightly, though, and manages to keep the edges of her mouth turned upwards even when the wolves are scratching at the door. 

And Cosima is an earthquake.

She shakes and she is intense in her violent dance. 

Cosima is soft and her steps are light, and she is fierce and tumultuous, and she has a _home_.

 

(Rachel hates Cosima for it, for being a genius, but not _mad_ , a fighter, but not _violent_ )

(Rachel _~~needs~~ wants_ to understand Cosima)

* * *

 

** E l  i ** **z a b e t h**

Elizabeth Childs was a bird caught in winds she didn't belong to. Lost amidst the clouds, she plummeted from the sky straight into the crashing waves. 

With tired feathers and weary eyes, Elizabeth Childs laid her head to rest so far away from _home_.


End file.
